Soft condensed matter and biophysics

Background: Proteins are complex machines that perform all the functions that are necessary for life.
Understanding how these proteins fold into states that allow them to perform their functions remains an unsolved problem.

What's about: We have provided a coarse-grained model that allows to fold proteins in a computer.

Why it matters?: How proteins fold is key for curing many diseases and for understanding how life is possible.

Background:How charged particles in water arrange near a charged
wall? Solutions are known only when the wall is approximated as a continuum,
but charges in real systems are discrete, as shown in the figure.

What's about: We have provided an extensive numerical analysis,
deriving a complete and general characterization of ion distributions.

Why it matters?: From living cells, to batteries, etc.. charged walls are everywhere!

Background: Cell walls are made of lipids. Phosphatidic acid is a peculiar lipid: is present in tiny amounts, yet participates
in almost all processes that communicate the interior with the exterior of the cell.

What's about: We have characterized, both with calculations and experiments,
how calcium regulates the charge of phosphatidic acid by competing against protons (as shown in the figure).

Why it matters?: The charge of phosphatidic acid is directly related to how phophatidic acid is
arranged within the membrane and, in this way, organize the information across the cell.

Background: Nanoparticles are the smallest possible arrangement of atoms
that still retain macroscopic properties. It is extremely difficult to arrange Nanoparticles into
ordered structures, but recently it has been achieved by linking them with DNA.

What's about: We have provided a model that predicts the phase diagram (as shown in the figure)
and characterized the dynamics.